An Example of Why the Administration Wants More Gun Control "Research"

If anyone was still wondering why Congress prohibited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using tax dollars to fund gun control advocacy research, and why the White House has called for $10 million in new funding for such research to help the administration "transform" the country's gun laws, the authors of a recent "study" that characterizes gun-owning whites as racists have bent over backwards to explain.

Without offering any proof to support their theory, the authors of Racism, Gun Ownership and Gun Control: Biased Attitudes in US Whites May Influence Policy Decisions proclaim that "The public health importance of gun reform in the US is clear," and "attitudes towards guns in many US whites appear to be influenced . . . by illogical racial biases," so "greater control of firearms is the most logical direction for public health policy." Furthermore, they say, because "there remains considerable resistance in the US to even cursory gun controls," "gun control policies may need to be implemented independent of public opinion."

Economist John Lott sufficiently shreds the authors' ideas that racism is "related to having a gun in the home and opposition to gun control policies in US whites," that "owning a firearm may lead whites to develop more negative attitudes towards blacks," and that people "who have recently held a firearm produce enhanced salivary testosterone levels and display increased aggression toward others."

As he did in testimony before the U.S. Senate during hearings on Stand Your Ground laws last month, Lott pointed out that those who are trying to use racial preconceptions and biases to add an air of legitimacy to their anti-gun campaigns don't have the facts on their side. African Americans who have had to use guns to defend themselves actually have benefitted more from Stand Your Ground laws than have whites, and the anti-gun study's definition of racists would include some African Americans and other non-whites.

We will add only that things have come to a pretty pass when the musings of people who are exceedingly biased about guns, and a whole lot more, can see the light of day on a website supposedly devoted to legitimate research.

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